Woman's Hour - Ofcom's age check guidance, Adwaith, Kamala Harris's legacy

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

The communications regulator, Ofcom, has published new industry guidance for online services, in which it sets out how it expects online platforms - including social media and porn sites - to introduce highly effective age check measures to prevent children from accessing online pornography and to protect them from other types of harmful content. To discuss the new guidance and its potential impact Anita Rani is joined by Lindsey Fussell, OFCOM’s interim group director for online safety. Kamala Harris made history as the first woman - and first woman of colour - to become Vice President of the United States of America. She rose higher in the country’s leadership than any other woman before her. Anita discusses her legacy and future with BBC News Online Editor, Courtney Subramanian; and co-founder of Higher Heights, an organisation that works to mobilise black women voters, Kimberly Peeler-Allen. What might be next for the woman who could have been the first female president?A Royal College of Nursing report, On the Frontline of the UK's Corridor Care Crisis, out today, finds that the situation in A&E is the worst it has ever been and that a lack of hospital beds means corridor care has been "normalised". One nurse described caring for a 95-year-old woman dying with dementia who had spent eight hours lying on a trolley in a crowded corridor next to a drunk person who was vomiting and being abusive. Others describe women having a miscarriage in side rooms. Professor Nicola Ranger, Chief Executive of the Royal College of Nursing joins Anita to discuss what is going on.The all-female, Welsh-language, post-punk trio Adwaith are the only band to have won the Welsh Music Prize twice, for their first two albums. The critically-lauded band are about to release their third album, Solas, all about returning to their hometown in Carmarthen. Band members Hollie Singer, Gwenedd Owen and Gwen Anthony talk to Anita about writing in Welsh, what home means to them, and being role models for young women – and they perform their latest single Miliwn live in the Woman’s Hour studio. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Rebecca Myatt

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Just to say that for rights reasons, the music in the original radio broadcast has been removed for this podcast. Good morning and welcome to Woman's Hour. A new report is out today which surveyed 5,000 nurses in the past four weeks. You just heard about it in the news bulletin there. It's titled On the Frontline of the UK's Corridor Care Crisis. It's revealed some shocking truths about nurses' experiences within hospitals, but particularly in A&E. Over half a million patients had to wait at least 12 hours in A&E to be admitted to a hospital bed last year

and this lack of beds means that corridor care has become normalised. Well this morning we'd like to hear from you about your experiences of either being a nurse and what the situation is like for you at work or if you or someone you know had to be in hospital in the last few months. How was that experience? Get in touch with the programme in the usual way. The text number is 84844. You can contact us on WhatsApp on 03700100444. You can email the programme by going to our website. And of course, if you want to follow us on social media,

it's at BBC Woman's Hour. Also on the programme today, with the inauguration of Donald Trump just around the corner, we'll be looking at the legacy of his opponent, the Democrats' presidential candidate, the first woman of colour to run for the big job, Vice President Kamala Harris. And today, music from the post-punk band Adwaith, who sing in their native Welsh. That text number, once again, with your thoughts and opinions on anything you hear on the programme is 84844.

But first, the average age at which children first see online pornography is 13, although nearly a quarter come across it by the age of 11 and one in 10 as young as nine, according to research for the Children's Commissioner for England.

Well, this morning, Ofcom published new guidance for online services in which it set out how they expect online platforms, including apps, social media and porn sites, to introduce more effective age check measures to prevent children from accessing online pornography and also to protect them from other types of harmful content. Well to discuss this new guidance and what impact it could have on keeping children safer online which we are all interested in is Lindsay Fussell who's Interim Group Director for Online Safety at Ofcom, the UK's online safety regulator. Lindsay welcome to the programme, thank you for coming in to talk to us about this. It's just hot off the press, You've just announced it within the last hour. So give us the headlines. What is the new guidance

that you're introducing? Well, good morning. This is the next key step in implementing the Online Safety Act, which is intended to keep all of us safer online, but particularly children. And robust age checks are very much a cornerstone of that act. And what we've announced today are the measures that sites and apps are going to need to take, those sites that allow harmful content, the content that is particularly harmful to children, to introduce age verification so that children can't normally encounter that kind of content, particularly porn. Because up until now, self-declaring your age clearly hasn't worked your own research has shown that nearly a quarter of 8 to 17 year olds lie that they're 18 or over on social media apps so what methods are you talking about exactly what what is you're

discussing effective age check measures what what does that mean? Absolutely so the Act requires effective highly effective age assurance and what we've done today is set out what that means and we think there are quite a lot of different methods that can be used to to do that we're all kind of quite used aren't we to verifying our age or at least perhaps those of us that those of my age perhaps a bit less so now but verifying our age offline when we want to buy alcohol or cigarettes. This obviously moves us to the online world. And there are a range of things we think that sites could do, but they include things like credit card checks, facial ID estimation and photo ID.

So we think there's a range of options available to them. But we're clear that they must be robust, fair, accurate and reliable. And you say that pornography services must introduce age checks by July 2025 at the latest. How is this going to be enforced? That's right so all sites, all adult sites have to introduce these checks by July. We have, we'll of course be working with them throughout this. In fact, we're opening our first enforcement programme today to put those sites on notice and explain what they need to do. Of course, we're hoping that the vast majority will comply. But if they choose not to, the Act gives us robust enforcement powers and we won't hesitate to use them.

What happens? What happens if someone decides just not to do it? Well, the Act gives us a range of things we can do. We can open investigations and ultimately fine them up to £18 million or 10% of their revenue. And in extreme circumstances, we can even go to a court and ask them to prevent a service from operating in the UK. So how will this work? So I'm just thinking about parents listening who whenever we talk about anything like this i'm sure everybody becomes high alert because we all want to protect our children how is this going to prevent a 10 year old from being able to access things that they shouldn't be seeing how is it going to work in practice

absolutely so what this means for us as as adults, when we go on to these kinds of services, perhaps just the first time, if they're the kind of service where you have a login and a subscription, but perhaps every time if that isn't the kind of service that it is, we will be asked to carry out a check to prove that we're over 18. And as I've said, that could involve a range of different methods. And we know you were talking earlier about the really shocking stats about how early in their lives children see porn. And when you listen to children, and it is really important to listen to children in this space, those younger children, those under 13, tell us two things. One is that when they see porn, they find it confusing and distressing.

We know from other research that it affects their approach to relationships ongoing in their adult life. But also the vast majority of those younger children didn't go looking for it deliberately. They encountered it online when they were searching for something else, when they were led down a path that took them to this. And we think these kinds of checks will particularly help those children and make sure they don't stumble across porn when they're using the Internet for, you know, for other purposes. How realistic is it for all services which allow porn to have highly, highly affected these age verification checks that you're talking about in place? If that is what you're meaning, any platform that can be accessed by users in the UK, no matter where they are in the world, how many companies are we talking about? Well, so you're right that the Online Safety Act itself covers a huge number of companies, potentially up to 100,000. Of course, not all of those are adult services, which are the ones that we're particularly focused on today. Alongside our measures on highly effective age assurance,

the other thing that we're asking services to do today is to carry out an assessment of how likely they are to have children on their site. And for those services that have this risky content, they are likely to have to conclude that there are children present unless they are already age-gating their site. And then in April, we'll set out further measures that they need to take to to protect children from from seeing that content but we are focused particularly here on sites that allow harmful content not just

porn but also suicide, eating disorder and and content that promotes self-harm. How robust can you be? Because kids are tech savvy and they always find ways to work around things. No, I have teenagers myself and they are pretty good at working their way around all sorts of measures. And of course, we see that in the offline world as well in terms of things that kids aren't supposed to be able to get hold of.

As I said earlier, we really feel that this will particularly help those younger children who are not deliberately searching. We think it will make it much harder for them to do so and to access porn. We're not naive. We know that older children will perhaps find ways around the age checks, you know, perhaps asking an older sibling even to log on on their behalf, for example. But we believe these measures will go a long way to helping those children, particularly those that are, you know, are not looking for this content. And, you know, it feels long overdue, doesn't it? But, you know, we've up until now allowed children to have completely free access to this kind of stuff.

And then it does make you wonder, is it too little too late? Well, the way I like to think about this is what we hope to be seeing in six months' time, but also in two or three years' time. So in six months' time, I hope that we'll see the vast majority of sites adult services having this kind of really robust age verification in place we do track as do others how often children see porn and at what age they do so we certainly hope to see those those statistics going in the right direction but I also think probably in a couple of years time we'll all sit back and wonder why on earth we allowed this to happen you you know, up until now

that we did allow this kind of wild west where children could access this really harmful content. We already are, aren't we? We were already asking how we got to this place. So how are you going to enforce it? Well, as I say, we have got powerful enforcement tools in place. We will test to see whether platforms have put age assurance measures there. And if they haven't, we'll be prepared to take action. I think the other really important thing, because of course, most of the people listening to this I know will be adults like us, is that we are all going to have to accept that our online experience might look a bit different. It might be a bit more tricky. It might be, you know, there might

be some steps we have to do as we have to do in lots of other areas of our life but I think we have to accept and we know from our own research that most adults do that this is perhaps a price that we have to pay to keep our children our children safe. At the weekend Ian Russell the father of Molly Russell who took her own life at 14 after seeing harmful content online, appealed to the Prime Minister to tighten rules that protect children online. He says the UK is going backwards on internet safety. He backed the Online Safety Act, which was introduced last year, but he calls the way that the regulator Ofcom, that's you, is implementing the rules as a disaster. What would you say to him? Well, we talk regularly to Ian and also to representatives of

many bereaved families who've suffered the most unimaginable losses. And, you know, it's impossible to have anything but the highest respect for the way they've campaigned to get this act on the statute book to try and keep all of our children safer online. With respect, you know, I don't recognise the description of the way that we've implemented the Act. We think we have implemented it quickly and in a robust way. And this announcement that we're making today is just the next step in that. What response did you get directly from companies when you announced the draft guidance over a year ago? Well, inevitably, you get a big range of responses to this. Some companies are already moving into this space and have already started to go through the process of implementing these age checks. And that's fantastic. You know, a lot of services do say to us that they have relied on children simply self-certifying, claiming that they're over 18 when they're not.

And, you know, there's no hiding place. This is UK law and all of these services will now have to comply. When I knew you were coming on to talk about this, the first thing that came to me is I wonder how frustrating sometimes Lindsay finds her job just because technology moves so rapidly. And do you feel like you're going to win this battle? Do you feel like you're constantly chasing something? And we talk about it all the time on this programme. Well, you're right that, you know, technology moves incredibly fast. And as a regulator, we will need to move to keep up with it to evolve our regulation and strengthen it over time. You know, there are not many countries in the world that have got this, have put this in place to keep up with it, to evolve our regulation and strengthen it over time.

You know, there are not many countries in the world that have got this, have put this in place as yet. So we are quite world leading here. But actually, I and I know most of my team get out of bed every morning with kind of huge confidence, but also a huge sense of purpose and mission. You know, I was talking earlier about some of the research of the impact of porn on children. One of the most concerning things I think is that children who are exposed to porn, both boys and girls,

find it much harder to understand or explain consent. And, you know, if you think about that, that is an incredibly troubling statistic. And the thought that we might be able to prevent some of those children from having this access to this content and living better lives with healthier relationships as a result is very much what inspires us all to do this really important work. Realistically, how much safer do you think your guidance will help make online safer for children i mean i think you know um it is early days and we will be you know tracking very carefully what happens as a result of this um but as i said earlier the fact that children have had free access to this kind of really harmful content

and that these checks should ensure that it is much more difficult for them to have that access will make it we believe it will make a make a real difference uh to to all of the lives of all of our of our children in the uk um thank you very much for for coming in and speaking to me this morning uh lindsey fussell the interim group director for online safety at offcom 84844 is the number to text um and we will be talking about um uh corridor care which is a new report that's come out um from the royal college of nursing looking into the experiences of nurses in the uk corridor care and a message here doesn't seem anything new to me uh says kath in manchester my father was taken by ambulance to a Manchester hospital over 25 years ago. He was suffering with terminal bone cancer and in a lot of pain.

He was kept on a trolley in a corridor for over eight hours. My elderly mother had accompanied him. And while she was helping my father, a thief stole her purse. They weren't offered anything to eat or drink. And without her purse, she couldn't buy any refreshments. And another one here from somebody who hasn't given their name. It says, my father-in-law,

who was 87, was admitted to A&E in November. He had suspected broken hip because of his bone cancer, despite the A&E department being described as a war zone by the paramedic who first collected him from home.

The staff in the county hospital were utterly outstanding. Entering the A&E ward to visit was a daily emotional challenge somehow. And with great effort and resilience the consultant nurses and the consultants nurses and supporting staff cope with this on a daily basis. I commend them for this and I know that every member of staff is trying to do their best in the face of adverse circumstances. Keep your thoughts coming in. The text number once again is 84844. Now Monday, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the

47th President of the United States of America, which means his opponent in the race to the White House, Vice President Kamala Harris, has only a few days left in office. She made history as the first woman and first woman of colour to become vice president. The daughter of an Indian mother and Jamaican father, she rose higher in the country's leadership than any other woman before her. But what did she achieve during her time in office? And what is next for the woman who could have been the first female president? Well, joining me in a moment to discuss this is BBC News Online editor Courtney Subramanian and Kimberley Peeler-Allen, co-founder of Higher Heights, an organisation that works to mobilise black women voters. I'm going to come to you first, Kimberley. You know her. How do you think she's reflecting on her defeat? Very good morning.

Welcome to Woman's Hour. Good morning. I think she is, as I think her face has told us in her public appearances over the last few weeks. I think she is saddened. But I think at an event that I attended at the vice president's residence, she said it was not the outcome that she had hoped for, but the work continues and she is committed to being with us in the work. So I take that as resilience, that she is, you know, plotting the next, you know, whatever her next will be. And, you know, though it was probably one of the most painful times of her life, given the mis and disinformation and the personal attacks that were lobbed at her and just the challenge of running for president. I think she is it continues to be committed to public service. So we will not this will not be the last that we see of her.

But I anticipate that she will take some time, definitely go back to California. I'm sure we will see her doing some work as a volunteer in Southern California with the wildfires, just because that is who she is. But I anticipate she's probably going to spend a lot of time in her kitchen, which is her happy place where she cooks, and with her family, her nieces, her sister, and figure out what comes next. So you mentioned that you were at an event at her residence. I'm just wondering what the atmosphere was like in that room. It was mixed. It was very much a celebration of her time in the vice presidency. It was joyous. Her presidential campaign was very joyous, and she tried to very much bring that forward forward into the the holiday reception but there was definitely a lot of the sense of what if and you know we tried I think people were trying not to have foreboding over what was coming and just focusing on what where we were in that

moment and you know celebrate you know what what she and the first gentleman were doing and had done and brought to this country. Well, as I mentioned, on Monday, she'll leave office and J.D. Vance will be sworn in. I imagine it's going to be a tough day for her. Let's hear again what she said in her concession speech at the end of last year's election. My heart is full today, full of gratitude for the trust you have placed in me, full of love for our country and full of resolve. The outcome of this election is not what we wanted, not what we fought for, not what we voted for. But hear me when I say, hear me when I say, the light of America's promise will always burn bright. As long as we never give up and as long as we keep fighting.

Kamala Harris there. Now, we're also joined by BBC News online editor Courtney Subramaniam. Courtney, I'm going to bring you in here. I think we should look at her big wins and her big losses whilst she was vice president. Shall we start with some of, let's start with the losses. We can bring you in as well, Kimberly, on this. Sure. Yeah. I, you know, I, as a former White House correspondent for the LA Times, I've covered Kamala Harris for years. And, you know, if we're starting at the beginning of her vice presidency, that first year was very difficult. You know, she began on shaky footing with this high profile trip to Guatemala and Mexico, a trip that I was on, which was overshadowed by a bad interview, some comments she made during the press conference with the Guatemalan president, angered progressives, which, you know, was a key sort of component to her base or and who she her constituency. Right. I remember being the reporter and getting a panicked email in the

middle of the night from her staff trying to explain some of these comments. But that first year, you know, after that trip, staff turnover was frequent. You know, all of this fed into this idea that she wasn't prepared. And I think the West Wing was not helpful in those first couple of years. And I think in year two, I've talked to her staff and to advisors and folks around her in trying to break down her term as vice president. And in year two, there was a real effort to start repairing some of this, right? The overturning of Roe v. Wade helped. It gave her an issue that she was familiar with, one she could own in a way that President Biden could never, and it proved to be a driving force in the midterm elections that year. But it was in year three that I think there was this unified effort to overhaul her image that began

in the West Wing down and reset. And then she was focusing on issues she was more comfortable with, like women's reproductive rights, like gun violence, climate change, right? These were issues that also aligned with young people who she was, you know, polling showed us that she was. She had done the prep work in those last couple of years that sort of prepared her from the moment. But I will say that the first couple of years were very difficult, I think, for her in terms of finding her footing. And some of that, of course, you know, comes from the expectations that were imposed on her as, you know, a woman who made history in this role. But some of that was also self inflicted. Oh, I'm going to bring Kimberley in on that. Let's discuss the kind of her trajectory then when she took office because

her approval rating was high going in. But once she was there and slumped, why do you think that was? Well, I think it very much ties to what Courtney just laid out. I mean, I remember that first year was just, you know, I spent I think my whole face the whole year I was in a cringe because it just felt like everything that she was given was extremely difficult and it wasn't being handled particularly well. So there was this, you know, there's always the challenge of whether or not people see that she was, you know, qualified to do the job. So there were, you know, the questions began then and unfortunately got louder. Thankfully, she found her footing once, unfortunately, Dobbs fell. And she was able to really put together a cohesive team and lean into those issues that are much more comfortable for her. And I think the West Wing administration really saw that that was how she could truly be an asset. And it wasn't just giving her things that were difficult and meaty, but also giving her

things where she could really shine and how that could support the administration. But I think over time, there was always this misconstrued expectation of what she could accomplish as vice president. And I think this is an ongoing conversation around what exactly does the vice president do? And the answer is basically whatever the president does want to do or isn't going to get any attention. Well, it's a tough position, isn't it? Because it's not uncommon for the second in command to struggle to prove themselves in a role that's largely defined by being behind the scenes. Was that the case for her as well? Absolutely. Absolutely. And her job is not to make policy. Her job is to help the president administer policy or convey policy. It's not, she is part of the conversation and policy development, but she is not the leading force

on it. And I think that was where there was a lot of discussion in the public and in the media around what exactly had she done, what was her imprint. And I think there was just a constant mantra going back on that of like, who was asking what Dan Quayle did when he was George H.W. Bush's vice president, who really knew anything about Mike Pence before January 6th. And so I think those were some of the biggest challenges that she had and led to the questions of her capabilities. And then also, at the end of this administration, Biden's numbers were down. And it's very difficult for any vice president to succeed their predecessor when they are upside down in their polling numbers. So it was a very difficult landscape for her to be in. But in order to become who she is in the first place,

she would have known that, right? She was used to dealing with that, being underestimated and having higher expectations on her. Absolutely. Throughout her career, there was always the question of, well, are you qualified enough? underestimated and having higher expectations on her absolutely she had you know throughout her career there was always the question of well are you qualified enough and she's like well law degree from stanford isn't enough but uh and you know serving as a district attorney in san francisco a two-term attorney general in california senator from california all of these things and as

well as a you, laundry list of legislative accomplishments and policy accomplishments when she was attorney general that, you know, beyond qualified her. But we've seen this time and time again with every woman who steps into leadership, whether it is in corporate leadership or political leadership, that they constantly have to credentialize themselves and prove that not only should they be in the room, but they should actually be at the head of the table. Courtney, did she do enough for women? I mean, look, I think that is one of her primary concerns and has been, you know, particularly

since she's become the public face of this administration's fight for women's reproductive rights. I actually was told that that is something she is most concerned about going into the Trump administration. But she's waiting to, one, assess what happened with women in this election and, you know, those who came out for Donald Trump and trying to understand where women are in this country before she really stakes out a position and gets really vocal on this. She also wants to see what Donald Trump is going to do when it comes to women's issues. Did she do enough for women during her time as vice president? I think that is something that's a through line in her career. That's something that she's long sought in terms of policy issues. She was really big on maternal health,

particularly black maternal health during her time in California. But, you know, it's an issue that she was able to build coalitions around. She brought together a lot of different groups of faith leaders, of activists, of, you know, healthcare providers. And, you know, health care providers. And, you know, she made sure the issue was at the forefront of this administration. Kimberley, was her biggest stumbling block that America just isn't ready for a female president? I think there was a combination of things. I am very reluctant to say that the country is not ready. I think there are the factors around messaging and policy definitely play into whether or not the said woman is elected. I think racism, sexism, and misogyny were, you know, front and center throughout this race, have been, you know, through Hillary Clinton's race. So I think this is nothing new. But I think there's, it has to be this, you know, the stars have to align with both policy as well as the sentiment around the electorate.

And as we saw, you know, exit polling and a lot of what has been written and reported on post-election, that the country, the vocal electorate, were just moving in another direction. And I think much of that was also driven by policy, driven by economics, driven by social media and people being driven into polarized corners where the gender gap was quite pronounced, particularly the college-educated women versus college-educated men, which was surprising. So I think all of these things are, they intersect with each other. I'm not going to say that we're not ready yet, or we will not. But I think there's a lot of work to be done

to bring the country together overall because we are so polarised in this moment before we're able to bring a woman in. Well, at least she just about successfully managed to get everyone to pronounce her name right by the end of it. Thank you both for joining me to talk about Kamala Harris. BBC News online editor Courtney Subramaniam and Kimberley Peeler-Allen.

Thank you so much. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy.

And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now. 84844 is the number to text. Lots of you getting in touch about a variety of things that we're discussing this morning. Online safety, which we started the program with, with regard to online safety for children. I know that this issue is huge and there is simply no way to ensure that safety for every child online. Sadly, they can be too savvy for their own good at times, but I'm extremely glad steps are being taken to try to address this issue.

I hope that by the time my four-year-old is old enough, there is less chance he will happen upon content that will confuse, scare or scar him. Now, to the testimony of over 5,000 nurses who have shared their experiences of the realities of the job. The Royal College of Nursing report, which is out today, finds that the situation in A&E is the worst it's ever been and that a lack of hospital beds means corridor care has been normalised. One nurse described caring for a 95-year-old woman dying with dementia who had spent eight

hours laid on a trolley in a crowded corridor next to a drunk person who was vomiting and being abusive. Others describe women having a miscarriage in side rooms. Last week, more than 20 NHS trusts declared critical incidents as high levels of flu and the bad weather put huge pressure on hospitals. Now, of course, the vast majority, nearly 90% of nurses are women and many of you are nurses and have been getting in touch with me and please continue to do so. The text number is 84844. Well joining me in the studio is Professor Nicola Ranger, the Chief Executive of the Royal College of Nursing. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Why did you want to conduct this

research first of all Nicola? It was a very difficult decision to make actually we could starting to see that post-covid patients being put in places that they previously wouldn't have been we've always had winter pressures it's always been difficult sometimes in the winter but sometimes a bed would be open in a place that it shouldn't be for 24, 48 hours then close back down again. But what we've started to see over a gradual period of time that these inappropriate places are becoming more and more the norm. There are nurses in this report that talk about those escalation areas being open for two years. And as a college we started to see and we called this out in June of this year to say come on this has to stop and I went to lots of hospitals over the summer and I saw extra beds

in places they shouldn't be and increasingly this is becoming very very difficult for patients shocking but increasingly for a profession that actually really are the ones that can't walk away. I'm not saying that other people in hospitals and in places don't matter, doctors, physios, OTs, but they can move from patient to patient. Nurses are the safety critical people who are there if you need care, if you need a safety intervention and for them to be working in those environments is becoming increasingly hard for them to do that so we said tell us what you think and we opened it just before Christmas and closed it in January we didn't think as many people when then their time off they want to be with their families and friends, they would do our survey in the volume that they have. And also in the heart-wrenching way that they've told their story.

And we decided not to edit it, not to cut things out, to use their words. Yeah, 400 pages of testimony. Can you give us some, yeah, you've got it in front of you there. Can you give us some specific examples that really shocked you? There were really some very heartbreaking moments. Key themes that talk about oxygen and suction and people sitting in people chairs. That's because nurses are responsible for the safety. And they absolutely talk about how difficult that is in the environment they are but the real

harrowing bit to read is the human side it's watching people at the most vulnerable times in their lives not being able to give the care that they know they would want for their own family member and they one nurse very simply describes that she walks through her department and keeps her eyes down because she feels so ashamed of what she's seeing that she doesn't almost want to make eye contact. Somebody else talking about the fact that they, all the big stuff around trying to keep people safe and the challenge of that. But then describing almost the silent scream of a elderly patient who realized they're not going to get to the toilet on time and it was that that absolute lack of humanity that's made her hand in her notice after years of nursing and say do you know what I'm out without a job to go to that for us as the Royal College of Nursing,

is absolutely heartbreaking. And that's why it's, of course, about the patients, but it's also about the profession that looks after them. I'm just thinking about the nurse who couldn't make eye contact because of shame. You know, that's not her shame, for starters, but also you can't do your job. If you can't make eye contact with a patient,

you're not doing your job. A hospital in North London has posted adverts calling for nurses to apply for corridor care shifts due to pressure on the NHS, which has been exacerbated by the winter crisis. And this report, your report says that corridor care has now been normalised. I think we need to understand exactly what you mean by corridor care. So what that means is, so when someone comes into an A&E department, sometimes if there aren't enough cubicles, they can no longer be looked after in the department. So they start to come out of A&E. So you'll start to see people kind of spilling out of the A&E department.

But as the years have gone on, because the pressure in the A&E department we've then started to say well let's put extra patients on wards as well so if you think of a bed space in a hospital that's built for one bed you can have the patient's locker an emergency call bell oxygen and suction that's built for one bed we're starting we've seen an extra bed put in the middle of that we've seen nurse ward sisters offices made into a bed space so the pressure in A&E has spilt out to the entire hospital and actually what that means is that we we just are not being able to there's no emergency equipment there's no proper curtains there's no toilet equipment, there's no proper curtains, there's no toilet facilities. All of those things have a real, real impact.

NHS England Chief Nursing Officer Duncan Barton said increasing demand has put extreme pressure on the health service over recent months and described this winter as one of the toughest the NHS has experienced. He also spoke about the extraordinary efforts from staff who are doing everything they can to provide safe and compassionate care. He mentioned the very difficult winter period. Is this just a tricky patch given the winter pressures we're seeing at the moment? I think winter has always been there but actually I think it's bigger than that now. I think that there's no respite in the summer. As I said earlier, there are patients in inappropriate settings all year round. Listen, nurses have always worked in winter. They've always worked where it's been difficult. But what we're seeing is the impact of unprecedented care,

where there's nowhere to escalate to. If you've used all of your capacity because you've got no space throughout the summer, when the winter viruses come, there's no flex in the system. So I listen, and, you know, I know, many colleagues in our worked at very senior nurse level myself, people will be trying to do their best. This is not about a person failure, or hospital failure, or leaders leaders there is something that absolutely is this has to be a moment when everyone comes together to say what are we going to do differently this has to change we've as you can imagine nicola we're getting lots of people getting in touch with the program about their own experiences i'm just going to read a couple out um sue says i would like to

put forward the case uh for convalescent hospitals where people can be placed after hospital but are unable to cope at home until they're well enough or have a care package sorted out that would unblock the system of bed blocking and so free up the system to flow and stop hours of corridor beds hotels with nursing staff could start the ball rolling it costs a lot less than a hotel due to lack of support outside. That's from one person. Just listening to the news about patients being treated in corridors, what happened to the massive tents outside hospitals

which were used during COVID? They would surely be more manageable than the chaotic and highly stressful service currently on offer at A&E departments. And that's from Steph who says, thankfully, retired nurse. And another one here saying my 95 year old mother fell and broke her shoulder in June she was on a trolley in a corridor for 24 hours

then a triage ward with a recliner chair for another 24 hours she eventually made it to a bed and waited three weeks for a half shoulder replacement she has early onset Alzheimer's mum has made good recovery we're delighted to hear. I couldn't fault the staff or the care, just the lack of beds and the waiting times. The Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, said he agreed the problem should not be tolerated, but laid the blame on the previous government. He said his ambition is to undo the damage, as he puts it, to the NHS. What's your reaction to that? I think there's no doubt, if you look at the objective data, performance in the NHS started to deteriorate in 2015, whether that was elective care, emergency care. So there's absolute truth in that. And we can see that actually we've got objectively compared to other hospital, other countries, we have less hospital beds and we have less hospital staff. So there is something absolutely right around the legacy

that they've inherited. And we absolutely agree with that shift that Coral has just talked about, moving from care outside hospital so that we don't, this is a symptom of not having enough community care, not enough social care, not enough hospice care, all of the things that are mentioned. But there's one thing we haven't heard from this government actually, is life hospice care, all of the things that are mentioned. But there's one thing we haven't heard from this government, actually, is all of those things, even the tents that were just suggested, they all require staff. And the largest workforce in the NHS is nursing staff. And we have an absolute recruitment and retention crisis in the UK. So what's the solution? We have got to look at conditions. So this is all about patient safety. They're not proud. We've got to work on those symptoms to get

their work life better. We have got to look at their pay. We have. We are objectively, on OEC data, we are pay, we are 33rd out of 35th country for nursing pay compared to the rest of the world. Do I think it's because we're 90% women? Yes, I do. So actually pay, conditions, progression, and actually don't treat nurses like normal students. They're not.

We now have to pay for the privilege of being a nurse. Professor Nicola Ranger, thank you so much for coming in to talk to me about that. Nicola Ranger, the Chief Executive of the Royal College of Nursing. 84844 is the number to text. Keep your messages coming in. Now, winning the Welsh Music Prize. That's an annual prize to celebrate the best album made in Wales

or by Welsh people around the world. Would be a crowning achievement of any Welsh language brand. But winning it twice marks out my next guests as musical forces to be reckoned with. Gwen Anthony, Holly Singer and Heleth Owen together are the all-female post-punk Welsh band called Adwaith. And after two huge successes, they're about to release their third album, a 23-track epic homecoming called Solas. They're going to be performing it for us live in the studio in just a moment,

but let's hear a blast of their music to get started. So good. Best of 90 Best of 90 So good. The brilliant Adwaith, and that was Addo. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Or should I say Boroda? Boroda. Thanks for having us. Thank you.

It's our absolute pleasure to have you here. Addo, what's the name of that? What does that song mean? Addo means promise. Promise. And what about the name of the band, Adwaith? Where did the name come from? So it was actually from my mother. She asked me one time what reaction was. And I was interested in the fact that there's like two words that can be used.

So obviously you have amateb, which is like when you react to something. And Adwaith is like a chemical reaction. So I thought that was cool. How did you get together? Who formed the band first? I think two of you at school together weren't you yeah so me and Holly were in school together and we've known each other since we were two or three um for a long time and we started writing music in 2015 and we met Hileth at our first gig and she happened to be there which we were very lucky. We didn't have a drummer then, so we were acoustic. How does that work?

Heleth, did you just step up to her and say, do you need a, hey, I want to join the band? Well, I actually was aware of them before. So I'd listened to some songs on SoundCloud, I think it was. I think you had some demos. We met in the toilets. In the toilets, and I was just like, if you had some demos and in the toilets it's just like if you need a drummer let me know

A lot of the best conversations between women happen in the toilets in pubs and clubs particularly around asking if anyone's got any loo roll Anyway I don't know why I'm taking us down a tunnel we don't need to go down When did you decide, how did it happen

that you chose to write and sing in Welsh? It was from the beginning, wasn't it? We were inspired by the local scene in our hometown. We didn't see many women on stage. So we thought, we kind of did it to prove a point, really. What was the point? That we could do it. That we could do it as well.

Yeah, I think we were very inspired by the Welsh language scene. So it was a very natural thing for us to want to write in Welsh. And we didn't really, I don't think we even had a conversation about whether we'd want to write in Welsh or English. It was just something that we did and it felt very natural to us. Is it a political statement? What's it saying about you as a band? I don't know.

I think it's become one, isn't it a band? I think it's become one, isn't it? Yeah, I think it's become one, but because it was so natural to us to sing in Welsh, I guess in that aspect it wasn't political, but now it has maybe turned political.

Yeah, it's quite, I guess, punk, I guess, in a way. Because we are doing something very different as well. So it feels good as well. It feels powerful. Yes. I felt power from hearing three women singing in Welsh. And tell me something, I'd quite like to understand a bit about the language

and how writing in Welsh differs to writing in English. It's a very poetic language. understand a bit about the language and how writing in Welsh differs to writing in English? It's a very poetic language. The words are very descriptive, so it's very different. And I think I've noticed it a lot with this album, actually, is when we were translating the English, the Welsh lyrics into English, a lot of it doesn't directly translate. Like what? I'd love to hear some examples. Like, for example, like a word like búch góch gota, which is a ladybird, literally translates to little red cow. So like things are very, very descriptive. So when you directly translate that, it doesn't really make sense.

But yeah, I mean, it's such a beautiful language and very poetic and we feel very lucky that we've grown up around it and we've had our education through it and that we are able to speak the language, yeah. And does that sort of change the things that you write about as well? Yeah, I feel like we write, well, a lot of this album, I feel like it's about the landscape of Wales and also just where we grew up. Tell us about where you grew up. Kind of a lot of hills.

You're in Carmarthen, right? Yes. Yeah. Well, I'm from just outside of Carmarthen, yeah. Okay. Specific. Yes. That's where we practice as well, is in Hill Earth's housealyaris which is just outside of Cymardan it's so beautiful yeah

it's like it's really shaped us having that place to practice definitely it's like not far from the Brecon Beacons is it no you can see outside the barn it's the barn that we practice in and you can see like the mountains the Brecon Beacons in the distance and there's always loads of red kites flying about and it's just it's so beautiful it's the distance. And there's always loads of red kites flying about. And it's just, it's so beautiful. It's the dream. Yeah, it is. I'm with you.

Kind of hear it in the album as well. I feel like the landscape, you can really see a visual picture of it. Well, let's talk about the album because it's a 23-track epic. Solas, tell me about it. What inspired it apart from the landscape i think we were very um well the first two albums were definitely us finding ourselves as women and you know we were speaking about this the other day how the first album was us growing up you know late teens being 16 17 years old and that album documents that.

And the second album was us in our early 20s. And we've all moved away. And our experiences of moving away from home and traveling a lot. And this album is very like a homecoming album to us, where we've all moved back home. And we're sort of feeling similar emotions to what we did in the last two albums, but we feel so much more confident in ourselves. It's very grounded, I feel, this album. You're still very young, though, relatively speaking,

and you decided to move home, all of you. Why? I think flexibility, just doing the band as well, and also just loving West Wales. Having us all in the same place and being able to bounce off each other creatively and just have that sort of safe space, the three of us. And also, why wouldn't you, with kites flying around outside your window and the Brecon beacons?

What's the reaction like when you play within Wales and also in other countries? We've always had an amazing reaction, especially when we play in Europe. I think it's because bilingualism is such a normal thing. Us singing in Welsh is never questioned. It's never a strange thing to them because they're always used to their neighbours

speaking languages in languages that they don't speak themselves. So we find that yeah it goes down really well in Europe and across the UK of course um but I think especially in Europe and even when we played in North America it's they have such an interest in it do they know that about the language is there a lot of well there's a big well there's a big Welsh community there as well yeah that's it's nice in our gigs to see like the wash communities from different places come together and it's just a really nice like celebration of you know the welsh language and watch people coming together at our gigs it's like being the thing that ties watch people

together in different places yeah it's like really really sweet and they make friends you can see these communities that make friends because they've met at our gigs and stuff yeah that's beautiful you've said uh you often get people telling you that you'd be more successful if you sang in english yeah what's your response to that probably true but uh we just want to do what we want to do we want to i actually don't know if it is true though because either i don't i don't think we would be as successful as nice you just don't want to compromise either like it's hard enough to make a living from the music industry as it is and why would we compromise what we want to make oh yes thank you so much gwen holly helleth from Adwaith and Adwaith's new album, Solas, is out on the 7th of February.

The band are touring until the 8th of March. Come back, play for us anytime. That's all from me. Thank you. And thank you, Rhys, for joining the band as well. I'll be back tomorrow with more Woman's Hour. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello, I'm Robin Ince. And I'm Brian Cox. And this is the Infinite Monkey Hedgerow. He was unable to write a funny joke for the introduction.

The new series of the Infinite Monkey Cage. Science with funny bits. Science with bits. Funny science plus bits. So the reason that the Neanderthals died out, you're claiming, is because they weren't astronomers. Is that right?

Yes, exactly. This is how we investigate cybercrime. We look for the yachts. The new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage. From BBC Radio 4, listen now on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies.

I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby.

It's a long story, settle in. Available now.